


Hungry all the years

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [51]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Antivan Crows, Denerim (Dragon Age), Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, POV Zevran Arainai, Poor Life Choices, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-25 14:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21357403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Zevran Arainai was granted a second life by Caitwyn Tabris.  In Denerim, his past catches up with him and it turns out he's got friends to rely on.Note:This series is fully drafted, and we are under 10 fics until the end.  Preview: Landsmeet fics are up next.  Because who doesn't love the Landsmeet?
Relationships: Zevran Arainai & Female Tabris, Zevran Arainai & Warden
Series: Wed to Blight [51]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/879681
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Hungry all the years

Though the heights of Denerim paled in comparison to his Antiva City, Zevran still enjoyed the relatively fresh air and freedom from the streets of the city. He breathed deep of the sea air and enjoyed the lights in the harbor, mirror to the stars above. 

He caught a flash out the corner of his eye. Slowly, he turned his gaze toward the flash, as though he were distracted by the sights before him.

“Zevran,” Caitwyn whispered. He assumed a neutral expression and returned his attention to the young woman who had so very changed his life. “Not like you to go woolgathering. You see something?”

“No, my dear Warden, my apologies.” Hand to heart, he offered a little half bow, or as best as he could manage while perched on a wall barely a foot wide. Bann Franderel's estate sprawled below them. So much city for just one man and his kin, ah but that had always been the way of it.

Leliana knelt on the opposite side of Caitwyn, hood pulled up over her bright red hair. “We must be quick if we are to reach this private collection.” 

He grinned. “My dears, I would not let you have all the fun, or the credit.” What a joy it was to be once more doing something like his true work. Leliana’s blue eyes danced, but Caitwyn’s green eyes gleamed in the night and the barest suggestion of a grin curved her mouth. There was another flash. This time, a further two roofs down. They were on the move, then.

“Please,” he said as he gestured to the well-maintained grounds below, “ladies first.”

“Never been a lady, but if you insist,” Caitwyn whispered, her voice barely reaching his ears. She lightly descended down the wall, Leliana not half a step behind her though the bard did offer him a roll of her eyes. Zevran kept his perch and watched while the guards kept their routine. Only when Caitwyn and Leliana were safely at the entrance to the trapdoor, did he prepare to descend. But he lingered a moment, as though bracing, and a final flicker of movement caught his attention.

A figure hunched on a distant rooftop. It was shrouded in darkness and almost but not quite blended in to the erratic spurs of chimneys. With a flicker of a cloak, an entirely superfluous flourish, a small point of light flashed in the night. Then the figure dropped away out of sight. 

Zevran could not keep the frown from his face, for he knew the meaning of those flashes. They had been drilled into his mind as a child by cruel yet efficient instructors.

It could only mean one thing: the Crows had come to Denerim. And they had come for him.

* * *

“I don’t like this idea,” Alistair said, brow furrowed. Zevran kicked a leg over the arm of the plush chair with a negligent air. Arl Eamon’s library was one of the finer places he had been to in the last year or so, and he did so enjoy putting his feet up where he could. 

“Your concern touches me, my friend.” A glass of wine would have been a welcome addition, but alas, his friends did not mix the talk of business and drinking. Though if they did, it would undoubtedly be some malty beer rather than anything else. A shame.

Alistair huffed, but before the boy could speak, Leliana spoke up. “Zevran, do you not think this could be a chance to break from the Crows forever? If you do what they wish again, you would only once more be like them?”

“Not all of us, my dear bard, wish to be other than what we are.”

“Zevran,” Wynne said, making his name a tired sigh. He offered her only a bright, sharp grin. “Whatever your past, surely you can see the benefit of making a clean break with it.”

“ _ I _ do not see why you should not simply kill this superior Crow,” Morrigan opined. Bright yellow eyes glared at him from over the edge of a black leather bound book.

“Agreed,” the Sten intoned. “The witch is correct. Attacking the commanding Crow will scatter the foot soldiers. Then we can return to the important tasks at hand.”

“He will squish like any other bird.” The golem’s smile was cold and white and bright, and Zevran could admit to the appeal of the notion.

“Right for the enemy, elf!” Oghren cheered. “I’ll swing my axe right through that nug humper’s skull!”

“My friends,” Zevran said airily, “I appreciate your most vicious planning on my humble behalf, but I do wonder what our silent leader thinks.” He waved his hand to where Caitwyn stood. She watched the fire dance in the hearth. Even in the summer, Fereldens kept fires going. Though by what he had overheard in the city streets, this summer was hotter than the last. What crops had been planted were already wilting in the fields. 

Ferelden might survive the Blight only to succumb to famine. Though such was not his concern at present. Or perhaps ever if the Crows did away with him now. Him and the young Warden both.

Caitwyn stood with her hands behind her back, her head tilted as though she were able to catch all that were necessary to understand with one ear. When he had first seen her, he had only seen her small stature and slim build. Had seen only the grace and economy of her movement. How shallow his sight had been. When she had met his eyes after his surrender, when she had looked down at him as he lay on the ground bleeding, he had been struck by the weight of the scales in her eyes. Weighed and measured on that road where he had tried to kill her, on the road where they had met. And now, now here he sat in her company, but his fate once more in her delicate hands.

What had she seen, all those months ago, he wondered? Had she deemed him of worth? Or had something else compelled her to risk so much on him?

Summer-green eyes turned to him, and once more the scales tipped and balanced there. “It’s up to you, Zevran. It’s your choice.”

“Ah, but it is  _ you _ who has a price upon your very pretty head, my dear.” 

“And it is  _ you _ who has left the Crows, so we’re in the same spot of trouble. I won’t make the choice for you.”

He laughed. The others stared at him as if he were mad. Perhaps he was. Pure foolishness of the highest order to play the Crows at their own game, and yet. He swung his leg down and planted both feet on the floor and held his hand out. Caitwyn took it, and he stood.

“Then, my dear, it seems we have a few more things to do in this city of yours.”

* * *

“Oh, Taliesen,” Zevran sighed as he knelt by the body. Sightless eyes stared up at the cloudy Ferelden sky. “We have come so far from home, have we not?

“I’m sorry, Zevran.” Caitwyn crouched next to him, her shoulder just brushing his. He tried to offer her a smile, but for once it was not in him. Once, he had thought he could have killed Taliesen easily, cleanly. Not a single regret in his heart for the part the man had played in Rinna’s death. Once, he had thought they had been three shadows in the night. Assassins and lovers, they had danced across rooftops with the thrill of their skill and delighted in each other.

Once, he would not have expected the heaviness that dragged at his chest. Like a stone had been tied around his body and pulled him to the earth.

“He had come to kill you, my dear.”

“You could have sat the fight out.”

“No. No, I do not think I could have.”

He had loved this man. Once. Once in what had been another life.

Caitwyn’s slim fingers curled around his own. That simple touch shocked him out of his own thoughts and he raised his brows in surprise. She squeezed his hand and in her eyes was the weight of understanding. 

The scales balanced. The rock that dragged at his heart was no longer quite so heavy.

She let go of his hand, but the pressure of her fingers lingered on his skin. With a lightness he did not quite feel, he smiled and stood, Caitwyn beside him. A smirk bloomed on his face, and her expression became cautiously wary.

“My dear, I believe I shall stay with you until this Blight is defeated,” he declared.

“You do know that could take a while, right?”

“Then I have the great comfort of knowing that such time will be spent in beautiful company. You and your young man do make a pleasing pair to observe.”

Her expression dropped into bland resignation. “Good to see you’re back to your normal self, Zevran.”

“Ah, but what is behind us is behind us, is it not, my dear? Come, we should not linger here so. Ignatio will see to things, do not fear.”

Her gaze flickered to the dead man one last time, and his followed it. There was something almost like peace on Taliesen’s face. It did not belong there, Zevran thought, but then he put it out of mind. The Crows were done with him for now, but he did not think he was quite done with them yet. That, however, he would resolve in his own time. For now, he delighted in the lightness of his step. 

The Crows were behind him now, his life to do with as he would. And he would see that life granted repaid in full to she who had granted it.


End file.
